Sunday, August 30, 2015

La Gomera, Degollada de Peraza — San Sebastián

We spent almost all summer in Gran Canaria. Which was nice, but, for a bit of change, we went to La Gomera for five days. We took the early flight on Sunday morning, and were relaxing for the rest of the day.

On Monday, we did essentially the same walk as Tamara and kids did in April. For Tuesday, we had more ambitious plan: to walk from Degollada de Peraza all way down to San Sebastián.

Beginning of the path

We took the same bus #3 from Playa de Santiago to Degollada de Peraza as we did on Monday. As you can see from the pictures, it was partly cloudy, which was lucky as there is very little shade on the way.

View down to Barranco de la Laja

Stony path

Compared to Cruz de Tejeda — Teror walk, the route proved to be much more merciful to my legs. It is mainly stony path which winds gently down (most of the time) and none of those awful concrete slopes. Still, it would benefit from some TLC: the earth between the stones by now is washed/blown away, many stones are loose etc. The path is very well signposted and it's almost impossible to get lost.

Coastal Road and ferry's coming

Hairpin turns - look nice but I hate to travel on these roads

If Gran Canaria is often called "a continent in miniature", then La Gomera should be called "Gran Canaria in miniature". The key word here is "in miniature": it is really small. Because it is so small, it should be much easier to maintain its roads in good order. They actually are in good order, even compared to Gran Canaria, although after Finland I regard all Canarian roads as being "in good order". It does not change the fact that these roads, for the most part, scare the bejesus out of me.

Turtle's Head

Surely, on such a small island, you should run into people all the time. Right? Nope. On our way, we did not meet a single soul. Well, we were barked at by some big-eared Canarian dogs.

Roque del Sombrero and, just in front of it, Roque de Magro

It may look deserted, but a desert island it ain't. Even if you could ignore the motorways, which is physically impossible, the rest of the landscape is still utterly anthropogenic. To me, the duo of Roque del Sombrero and Roque de Magro looks like an Armenian church and a bit of Machu Picchu, respectively, transplanted on top of drained Banaue rice terraces by Atlanteans (Guanches, Vikings, Martians — take your pick).

Right now, the terraces look very dry but they should grow something there. We have to come back some other season and check.

You can clearly see the west coast of Tenerife

A view of San Sebastián de La Gomera

The view of San Sebastián raised our spirits. There aren't that many buses from San Sebastián to Playa de Santiago and we really wanted to catch the one at 5:45 pm so we made the last third of the way unexpectedly fast. Moreover, we even had plenty of time for drinks in a bar near the bus station.